Right up there with a job I once had sweeping a textile mill, covering the NFL is one of the most tedious gigs going.

Almost as regulated as the airline industry when it comes to managing media access, the league, unlike MLB and the NBA, doesn't allow reporters to talk to players before games. Weekday "open" locker-room sessions virtually amount to the long-snapper and a few rookie special teamers milling about.

The NFL regulated fun right out of pro football a long time ago, about the point when franchise irrelevancy crushed all those delightful free spirits who played for the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders. Who needs Ambien these days when a Tom Brady interview is available?

That's why this whole Richard Sherman debate seems so misguided. Forget the sociopolitical smoke screens pundits have floated since the Seattle cornerback's delightful rant last Sunday. I don't care if Sherman went to Stanford or was Otis Sistrunk's teammate at the University of Mars. Bless his heart for remembering in a brilliant moment of clarity that the NFL, beyond anything else, is an entertainment business, not that far evolved from professional wrestling.

As someone who really misses Sam Cassell and Zack Greinke in his professional life, what I'd give for a half-dozen Richard Shermans on any of the local teams. Really, since when did decorum become such an issue in football (rooted in mayhem), baseball (steeped in a rich tradition of cheating), hockey (predicated on fighting) and basketball (where Kobe and LeBron get seven pre-dribble steps)?

If I were basing my Super Bowl XLVIII pick on such irrelevancies, I'd go with Sherman's Seahawks, just for being honest about the brash, crude nature of professional football in the heat of such a competitive moment.

There is also local favorite Russell Wilson, who would just as soon set his Wisconsin letterman's jacket ablaze than go all Ric Flair on Erin Andrews. It was Wilson, naturally, who was visiting children's hospitals while Colin Kaepernick was being a mope. Takes all kinds to make Roger Goodell's world go round.

In fact, this whole Super Bowl buildup has become far too much of a morality play for something as ethically sketchy as a football game. Sherman vs. All-Around Good Guy and Pizza Salesman Peyton Manning. Heart Patient Survivor John Fox vs. Shady Pete Carroll. The New Jersey Meadowlands vs. The Civilized World.

Right now the Seahawks are about 21/2-point underdogs to the Denver Broncos, which seems about right. In a game featuring the league's best offense in Manning's Broncos and the league's best defense in Sherman's Seahawks, go with offense.

Which is to say, Manning isn't going to be denied. In yet another example of the rich getting richer, imagine how the guy is going to cash in with the steak industry off his "Omaha" audibles. Manning is the Paul McCartney of pro football. He might be old, but he still has it better than anyone else in the business. On top of that, he gets more protection from his offensive line than a third-world warlord.

If you're a Badgers fan, the aortic soft spots extend to Montee Ball and Wilson, all-time good guys who deserve good things to come their way. Russell is just a stone-cold winner. He couldn't quite get it done in the Rose Bowl because Oregon was better. And so it seems that Denver is just a little better than the team he now leads.

Two predictions:

Broncos 24, Seahawks 21, which means Sherman will do no celebratory post-game interviews.